Fitter than a Butcher's Dog
What exactly does that mean? I ask you. What is it about the dogs of a butcher which make them prone to good health? Does the butcher exercise them regularly? Perhaps after a day of thrusting heavy sharp metal objects into the carcasses of dead animals, the butcher likes to have a life-affirming walk with a live animal that he'd never dismember, even if it died of natural causes. Or perhaps the phrase refers to the idea that the dog, being in the favour of the butcher, might be able to get plenty of good tid-bits to eat. Though wouldn't a butcher prefer to sell the good meat and just give the dog the unpleasant offal and trimmings that are full of nothing good? Unless the butcher is trying to fatten up the dog for later dismemberment.

Come to think of it, butchers are evil.

Or maybe they're not, but they have really healthy dogs.

It's more likely that they have dogs that either eat a lot of shit, in which case they may be happy, but they're remarkably unhealthy.

That's me.

I've been the butcher's dog. In that I've been eating a load of absolute shit, which I'm sure is the equivalent of 9 months' worth of doggy treats. The unrelenting truth, though, is that it's been killing me. I've been feeling fat. Sorry. I've been feeling FAT. I've been out of breath, with straining clothes and a general sense of the imperative of finding the way of conducting myself which involves sweating the least.

This is not good. I don't want to be a butcher's dog. They die young, don't they?

Back on the Wagon, and it's full of hay
So, for the last couple of weeks I've been back on the dieting wagon. I've not been doing any of the habitual bad things which had been getting me fat. It's quite simply an unpleasant thing to be on a diet (and I'm seriously dieting at the moment, rather than just eating a bit more healthily) but if I don't start it the hard way then I probably wouldn't start it at all.

To give you an idea of the sort of stupidity which preceded this diet, here is a list of the things which I have not been eating in the last couple of weeks:

• Domino's Pizza
• Domino's Garlic Bread
• Other takeaway pizza
• Sugar-laced vending machine drinks
• Flapjacks from the office cafe - both sorts
• Cadbury's mini eggs
• Cadbury's creme eggs
• Chips
• Sausages
• Tuna mayonnaise sandwiches
• Anything made by Ginsters...
• ...or Greggs
• Chocolate brownies (or chocolate any-member-of-the-scouting-movement)
• Bakewell tarts
• Sausage rolls

None of those have been consumed in the last couple of weeks. I'll leave it up to you to work out how I've been fuelling my innate weight problem.

So, what have I been eating? What is the antidote to all this shite?

• Salad
• Very low fat salad dressing
• Chicken breast
• Fruit
• Black coffee
• Some milky coffees, skimmed milk where possible

I've cut down on carbs, I've cut down on fat and I'm eating not a huge number of calories each day. In two weeks I can really see a difference - I'm bloody miserable for a start. I'm also finding my shirts less bursting-at-the-seems-y. My trousers seem to fit a bit more and, although I switched to a slightly longer one, I'm no longer afraid of doing my belt up.

It sucks, but it's a necessary evil.